


Labour

by Schuyler



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-02
Updated: 2011-02-02
Packaged: 2017-10-15 07:29:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/158489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schuyler/pseuds/Schuyler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something's going on at Malfoy Manor. Ron goes undercover, sort of, the summer before his last year, doing hard labor on the grounds. He's not expecting to befriend Draco.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Labour

**Author's Note:**

> Canon only through book five, which is when I wrote this.

Things had not been going well.  Kingsley was dead, Moody had had his hips shattered, and Molly Weasley had been in a coma from May Day through the end of school.  Voldemort’s last attempt on Harry had very nearly succeeded, and there were reports that he was gaining followers.  No one in the Order had come up with a good idea in a while and they were starting to snap at each other.  So when Snape dropped his suggestion, Ron had leaped for it, even though he was the only one.  “Whatever is going to happen, whatever he is preparing for, it’s going to take place at Malfoy Manor.  There has been talk of a gathering there in the fall, and Lucius has mentioned that he’s hiring extra labor all summer to prepare.”

“I want to go,” Ron said, before Snape had quite finished speaking.

“This isn’t glamorous, wand-waving work, Mr. Weasley,” he replied.  “The Manor’s safety wards prevent anyone outside of the bloodline from doing magic on the grounds.  I do not believe that Lucius intends to alter those unless the Dark Lord himself is present, and then, not to include labourers.”

“Look, I’m the only one who can go.”  His mother began to reply and he spoke right over her.  “He hates me, but I think only enough to want me to suffer all summer.  He’d kill Harry on sight, and we all know better than to send Hermione.”  Everyone seemed to be staring at him, dumb.  “Does anyone else have a better idea?”

There was a long silence while Molly was obviously trying to work up a way to put her foot down about this.  Snape finally stood.  “I will run it by the Headmaster.  Goodnight.”  He nodded at the assembled group and then left.  Before the screaming could start, Ron went to his room.

 

Harry had already been sent for his four weeks at the Dursleys’ and Ron was secretly relishing having the room to himself.  Hermione came upstairs at bedtime and sat on Harry’s bed, crossing her legs beneath her.  “You can’t be serious about this, Ron.”  

Ron was already in bed and rolled to face her.  “I am.  It’s the only way we can find out anything at all, so someone has to go.”  He couldn’t be swayed.  At any rate, it would be better than spending another summer cooped up in what he still thought of as Sirius’ house.  

“But Ron, surely someone else...”

“Who?  Do you want Tonks to leave her work for three months to go dig holes at Malfoy Manor?”  

There was a pause before Hermione got up and came to hug him.  “Sleep tight, Ron.”

 

“So?” Ron asked.  Snape had summoned him to the library.  Ron was touching all of the knick-knacks (now that they were certified Dark Magic-free).

“The Headmaster thinks that you will be relatively safe.  Malfoy thinks it will be amusing.  You are to report to the Manor tomorrow morning.”  Just like that.  That easy.

“He doesn’t …  He doesn’t suspect anything?” Ron asked without looking up at Snape.

“He probably does, but he no doubt has paid attention to the general ineptitude of this generation of Weasleys and considers you harmless.” Ron slammed down the carved horse he was inspecting and finally looked at Snape.  He was just as tired as the rest of them, if not more, saying the words without the energy for real malice.  Ron had overheard him tell Arthur that the Mark burned all the time now.  Harry was reporting the same thing with his scar.  It would all be over soon.  “Malfoy’s potential amusement at making you dig trenches outweighs the perceived danger.”

Snape handed him a blue paper box.  “This is from the Headmaster,” Ron lifted the makeshift lid to find a golden teardrop-shaped pendant.  “It’s an emergency portkey.  Touch it and say ‘Take me home’.”  He caught Ron’s hand as he reached for it.  “Not now, you stupid boy.  That goes to the school, not here.”  Reluctantly, he produced a jar from a pocket and handed it over.

“What’s this?” Ron asked, feeling the paper box crumple as he shoved it into his pocket.

“Sunscreen,” Snape said mildly.  “You’ll need it.”

 

His mother woke him early enough for breakfast the next morning and there were tears in her eyes while she puttered around the kitchen.  “Think of it as a summer job, Mum,” he said.  He honestly wasn’t scared.  He wasn’t sure he had it in him anymore to be scared.  Hermione had hugged him for a long time at the door and made him promise to meet her in Diagon Alley on the last day of August.  “I’ve never missed it.”  It felt strangely freeing to leave the house for the first time in a week.  He was getting used to the sun again when Snape held him and Apparated.

The Manor was quite beautiful.  It looked like a palace from the front gate, painted gleaming white with a dark gray roof and sitting on acres of flat grassy lawns, edged by immaculately groomed hedges and gardens.  Ron pushed his duffel bag further up on his shoulder and headed for the wrought iron gate; Snape didn’t follow him.  When Ron looked back, waiting, Snape shook his head.  “I have no desire to go up there today.  Just press the crest and the gate will let you in.”  With a loud pop, he Disapparated.

Ron pressed his hand to the gaudy crest in the center of the gate (four ducks, two snakes, three hounds, and something that might have been a tiger on a six block field) and it asked him, politely, for his name.  “Ronald Weasley, here to see Mr. Malfoy.”  The gate swung dutifully inward.  Ron felt the crackle across his skin as he stepped through the wards, and the instant numbing of his own magic.  He could access it, and he could use it, but it was as if even the magic knew that it would do no good here.

At the end of the very long drive, the front door swung open for him.  He could feel the cooling charms as he stepped into the front hall.  The furniture all looked nearly antique, slightly too well-kept to be as old as they claimed.  It was all dark woods polished to gleaming and a curving staircase that loomed in front of him.  His eyes followed it upward to the ornate chandelier over his head.  It was the sort of careful opulence that would look out of place anywhere but a house like this.  The quiet and the cold and the cavernous size felt like a museum to Ron.  The portraits regarded him, but did not talk to him.  There was probably a rule about talking to the labourers.

A house elf draped in a crisp pair of black linen squares appeared in front of him.  “This way, Mr. Weasley.”  He followed it through a living room that did not look comfortable enough for actual living (and adorned with a giant statue of some long gone heir) and into a back hallway that was dim even in the morning sun.  The walls were paneled in the same dark wood and it felt far too formal to spend all day in, let alone your whole life.  At the end of the hall was a door with a snake carved in bas relief.  The elf touched the snake and it slithered, opening the door.  “He is expecting sir.”  The elf stood to the side while Ron entered Lucius Malfoy’s office.  As wanted as Lucius was by certain people, it was strangely easy to get in to his inner sanctum.  There were floor to ceiling windows on one wall, looking out over a strip of lawn and some more of the garden, oval shaped portraits of ancestors on every available bit of wall, and an enormous desk that looked built into the floor.  Lucius sat behind the desk, under a giant version of that same busy crest.

He let Ron stand about for a moment before looking up to acknowledge him.  It was the oldest trick in the book.  “Ah, Mr. Weasley.  Welcome.”  There was something sinister in his words, but Ron let them slide by.  He looked down at his papers again, apparently looking for something, while he kept talking.  “I am having some ... guests,” (this he said with a dangerous smile), “in the fall and the cottages need some repairs before then.  New windows, new roofs, that sort of thing.”  He waved his hand dismissively and Ron forced himself to stand still.  He longed to be outside again.  “You will be working with Timothy from the village; his father tends my orchards.  You’ll be staying in the cottages, pick whichever one you like.  If you need anything, see Lucky in the family stores.”  Ron stood there for another minute more until Mr. Malfoy looked up at him as if wondering why he was there.  “That is all, Mr. Weasley.”

Ron hmphed quietly to himself and then made for the hall again.  That elf was still waiting.  “Follow Mickle, Mr. Weasley.”  It walked briskly, which Ron made up for by virtue of longer strides, through a dining room with a table set for sixteen and two more of those chandeliers, through a kitchen bustling with more elves than Ron had seen in his entire life, and out the back door to the lawn.  The lawn sloped slightly down towards the cottages, a half-circle of five, arranged around a shallow pool of water ten feet across.  The cottages were ringed with tiny wildflowers, a riot for the eyes, as if they were actively fighting for space.  

To say that the cottages needed some repairs was a serious understatement.  One was missing a door and another hung from one remaining hinge.  Everything metal looked rusted through and the paint had cracked until the wood beneath was visible.  There were four panes of glass left whole in the five cottages, and the roofs were bare slabs of wood.  At the top of one of these, sat a man perhaps twenty years old was eating an apple.  He had sand-colored hair and an amused smile.  The elf intoned quickly, “Mr. Weasley, Mr. Tup,” and then disappeared.  

Timothy waved a hand in greeting.  “Hey.  You might want to stash your bag in this one, the roof seems the most stable, plus it’s got furniture.”  He continued talking as Ron made his way around the pond and through the still functional door.  “It’s taken me a week to get the old shingles off these things.  They were rotted through.”  Inside, there was a sort of living room, a bedroom, and a bath.  The floors were covered in dirt, half an inch deep, and the bedroom had no windows at all, but the open holes looked out onto a grouping of trees and a proper lake beyond that.  He set his bag on the bed (the bed, the table, and the single chair all looked serviceable and clean enough) and went back out to the living room.  Timothy was standing in the doorway.  “I don’t think anyone’s used these since the young Master had his playrooms down here.”  He smiled and shrugged and held out his hand.  “Timothy Twyck, but everybody calls me Tup.”

Ron smiled back and shook Tup’s hand.  “Ronald Weasley, but everyone calls me Ron.”

“We can get started in here, if you want.  Best if you don’t die of some awful dirt disease before we finish.  I need all the help I can get.”

It turned out that Tup had been using the fifth cabin (the one furthest from Ron’s) as a tool shed, and they loaded themselves with brooms and mops and buckets before heading back.  Ron went into the bedroom, drew his wand from his pocket and tucked it in his bag before they started.  “Been a while since I’ve seen one of those,” Tup said, gesturing at Ron’s wand through the doorless jamb between the rooms before going back to his sweeping.  

“You ... you’re not?” Ron asked lamely.

Tup laughed.  “Mr. Malfoy only hires squibs, or I suppose he only did until you.  The village is full of them.  You should come down to the pub one night, have a bit of fun while you’re here.”  

“I should,” Ron said, strangely looking forward to a summer at the Manor, and took the bucket off to the bathroom to be filled.

 

Tup waved goodbye and headed back down to the village just before six.  An elf appeared in his living room with dinner on a tray not too long after.  She barely reached his knee, but looked sternly at him.  “Mr. Tup never finishes his dinner.  Hanny trusts that you will.”  Hanny seemed to be demanding, but Ron nodded his head and she disappeared.  He dragged his one chair out to the one table and ate his roast beef.  After nine months in the castle and eight days at Grimmauld Place, the solitude was calming.

The floor had been swept to within an inch of its life, and the broken glass carted out, so Ron felt safe dropping his bag onto the floor.  He knew it was early, but stretched out, exhausted by a day of actual work, and slept until dawn.  When he walked through the archway, going to look out of the front windows, a bowl of porridge popped onto his table.  He took his bowl of porridge back to bed and wondered how the elves weren’t affected by the warding.

 

He managed to go two weeks without seeing Draco.  He and Tup had started on the roofing.  They had made a list of repairs that needed to be done and were surprised at the shortness.  However, the tasks themselves were sort of large.  Picked at random from the list, the first task read “Shingle roofs”.  They had considered whether roofs was spelled with a v, like wolves, while they waited for the builder from town to bring up the slate.  Mr. Malfoy had chosen slate shingles for the cottages, to match the Manor.  The shingles were heavy as hell and Ron had spent the first day thinking about how much easier this would be with a wand.  By the third day, he was learning to like the work, sleeping heavily through the night and getting stronger by the day.  He was also very appreciative of Snape’s sunblock.  He had missed the back of his neck the second day and it had burned rather badly.  On Tup’s recommendation, Ron had gone to the door of the family stores (on the far side of the Manor from the cottages) and asked Lucky for help.  Lucky had given him a recriminating stare, and then a tiny cup of mud colored cream.  “Before you go to bed,” was all Lucky said before closing the door.  By morning, the burn was gone.

Draco came strolling down in the middle of the hottest afternoon they’d had so far.  They’d already ripped down the last of the old shingles and pre-cut and drilled the new slate ones.  Ron was on top of the fifth cottage, accepting the tiles that Tup handed up and nailing them into place, when he saw Draco coming down the rise.  This he was not looking forward to.  A summer of Malfoy’s taunts and jibes.

Draco, dressed in a blue oxford and gray trousers, opened with, “Well if it isn’t Weasley, and working for the Malfoys this time,” but it wasn’t very energetic.  He was doing it as if he had to.  His eyes stayed on the flowers at the base of the house.  Ron tried to ignore him and took another shingle.  He wiped his bare forearm across his brow, and then turned to nail the shingle into place.  There were a few minutes of silence, while Draco looked at the trees, and the grass under his feet, and the ring of dirt around the pool.  “This is what Weasleys are for, I guess, to do work that is beneath the Malfoys.”

Ron finally turned to face him.  “God, just sod off, Malfoy!”  He refrained from throwing the hammer.  Draco finally looked up at him, shocked, and then turned to head back to the house.  

Tup whistled.  “Strong words, there, Ron.”  He handed up another shingle.  “Don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone speak to the young master like that.”  

 

Ron was working on a letter to his mother detailing what little had happened and idle speculation on the curious design of the wards (in case the letter would be screened before sending), and enjoying one of the peaches Tup’s father had brought down from the orchard, when Hanny appeared in his living room, looking nervous.  “Master has requested sir’s presence in his study immediately.”

“What’s it about?” he asked.

“Go!” she said, twitching, and then disappeared again.

Ron signed his letter, then pulled a sweater on over his t-shirt and left the cottage.  The house looked just as beautiful at night, with all of the windows glowing warmly gold.  He let himself in the back door and picked his way through a clattering sea of kitchen elves, doing the dishes and washing up.  Beyond the swinging door into the dining room, it was completely silent.  The three candelabras on the table were filled with dozens of lit candles (thirteen apiece) and the table was polished until reflected almost mirror perfect.  There was one dirty place setting left, two stacked plates framing a half-eaten bowl of ice cream.  Ron ran a finger along the table as he walked by and smudged a line three places long.  He crossed the hallway outside of the dining room and came up to that carved snake again.  He touched it the way Mickle had and the thing hissed angrily, but still opened the door.  Lucius Malfoy was standing behind his desk, layered in black robes and topped by all of that blond hair.  Draco was standing behind and to the right of his father, almost sneering and wearing black robes with a snake on the clasp.  Ron was getting sick of the snake theme.  Mr. Malfoy looked severely angry.  “Mr. Weasley,” he said, as Ron came to a stop in front of the desk.  He sounded rather like the door snake had.  Ron stuck his hand into his pocket and realized he’d left his wand behind.  “The servants and labourers here at Malfoy Manor,” he began to stride around the desk towards Ron, “have not been in the habit of mouthing off to the family.  They will not start now.”  He stopped between the desk and Ron, then sharply slapped Ron across the face.  Ron took it, leaning  with the force, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw Draco flinch.  Mr. Malfoy looked pleased to have done it, and bent to speak quietly to Ron.  “You will never address my son in that manner again, Mr. Weasley.”  Ron thought that he could do what he liked when they got back to school, but nodded anyway.   He waited for the haughty dismissive incline of Mr. Malfoy’s head before he left the office.  

Instead of locking himself up in his cottage on such a beautiful night, Ron went back down only to retrieve the letter and then went up to the family stores.  Lucky swung the door open after one knock.  “Don’t you ever take a break, Lucky?” Ron asked, a smile on his face.  Lucky put his hands on his hips and glared and waited until Ron sighed and continued.  “I wanted to send a letter to my mother.”  Lucky stomped off into the dark, expansive room behind the door, and Ron leaned up against the wall and waited.  He tried to remember if Cassiopeia was over England in the summer; it had been his favorite constellation in Astronomy.  Firenze had also explained, when Ron was studying for his O.W.L in Divination, how the passing of Cassiopeia had foretold a betrayal during the First Voldemort War.  Ron suspected it meant Snape.

Lucky returned with a white owl.  “Tell Hector where you want him to go.”  Ron fastened his scroll to Hector’s leg.  

“The Burrow, outside Ottery St. Catchpole.  Do you know where that is?”  He patted Hector and Hector seemed to nod.  “All right then.”  Lucky flung his arm up and Hector took to the skies.  Ron and Lucky stood and watched through the clear night as Hector sailed over the gardens and orchards and off into the distance.  “So, that’s it then?  No one to check my spelling or content?” Ron said, putting his hands into his pockets.

Lucky looked cross.  “Does sir need anything else?”

“Nope ...” Ron started, and Lucky swung the door shut in his face.  Ron shrugged and wandered off towards the gardens.  He found a hillock overlooking some roses and settled in to watch the stars for a while.

The moon was high in the sky, lighting up the whole of the estate, when Ron finally got up and headed back to his cottage.  His arms ached from handing up and being handed shingles all day.  He swung them to get the blood flowing again as he made his way down the hill.  He closed his eyes a moment, to enjoy the sensation, and when he opened them again, he realized that his cottage was lit.  It lit when he entered, a sort of golden glow coming from nowhere in particular, and shut off when he got into bed, or when he left.  Ron’s hand automatically went for his absent wand.  Ron slid up against the wall, and peered carefully through the empty front window.  Draco Malfoy was sitting at his table, reading Ron’s seventh-year Charms text.    
”Getting a leg up, are we, Malfoy?” Ron asked as he came through the door, shutting it securely behind him.  

Draco scrambled to his feet and looked piteously contrite.  “I just ... came to apologize.  I’m not the one who told on you.  To Father.  Hanny was bringing your lunch and,” his gaze slid away from Ron and towards the back window.  “The elves are bound to report that sort of thing.  They can’t help it.  I don’t think she wanted to.”   Having never been put in the position before, Ron had no idea how to respond to a personal apology from Draco.  “At any rate, I’m sorry that it happened, back in Father’s study.”

“Apology accepted,” Ron said graciously and Draco finally exhaled, as if a great weight had been lifted.  Then there were more than a few moments of standing in silence before Ron offered Draco a peach.  “Tup and I have already gone through the five lagers he brought up, so I’m afraid they’re all I’ve got.”  

“No, no,” Draco said, edging toward the door.  “But, thank you.”  He slipped out of the door and Ron shrugged as it latched behind him.  Ron had just made himself comfortable in the chair that Draco had vacated when Draco stuck his head through one of the front windows.  “Would you mind if I came down again?  If I can?”

Ron weighed his reluctance to hang out with Draco against his opportunity to find out something actually useful, and nodded.  “Sure, anytime.”

 

The next morning, when Ron woke, there was a parcel on the table from his mother.  He unwrapped it while wondering whether the complete lack of privacy from the elves was because he was a hired hand, or because that was simply how the elves of aristocrats served their families.  Molly had baked him a dozen sugar cookies.  He opened the enclosed letter, which was only, “Have a cookie!  Love, Mum.”  He ate the cookie on the top of the pile, and words began to appear on the rest of the page.  She had used her own most important discovery to write a letter about nothing important at all.  Moody was up and walking again and Hermione had been keeping watch over him; it gave Hermione something to do.  Harry had come to Grimmauld Place just for a day to moan about the Dursleys and be comforted with cake.  Under the plate, she had tucked the paperwork for an Apparition license.  She wrote that she hoped he would be home in time early enough to do it, but they could go as late as the day before school started.  Ron hadn’t even thought about it.

Tup dragged Ron down into the Village the next night for a pint or two.  It wasn’t much of anything, three shops and the pub and two dozen houses.  Tup explained as they strolled that it was pretty much just the families of the labourers from the estate, squibs the lot of them.  He looked glad to be home.  He held the door to the Rusted Dragon open for Ron, and Ron went in first.  It was just dusk outside, but dim inside.  The place bustled with activity, most of the booths and tables filled, and conversations seeming to spill from one group to the next with no break.  Everyone obviously knew everyone.  “Tup Twyck!” the barman called out cheerily, coming towards their end, and a fair few of the patrons raised their hands in greeting.  Tup steered Ron towards an empty stool and hitched himself onto the one alongside.  “Who’s your friend, Tup?”  Ron had been worried that they would be leery of outsiders, but the barman, at least, looked eager to meet someone new.

“Ron Weasley.  Came down to work at the Manor for the summer.”  

“Wonderful to meet you, Ron,” he said, turning away to pull a pint for Ron.  He flipped down a barmat and dropped the glass on top.  “You are old enough to drink, ain’t ya?”  He gave Ron a conspiratorial wink and then went to pull one for Tup.  

They sat for a while, talking about Quidditch and life in the village, before Tup brought up the Malfoys.  “But then, you’re up at Hogwarts with the young master, aren’t you?”

Ron felt oddly ashamed of the fact, sitting here next to Tup who couldn’t go.  He nodded, then smiled.  “He’s the biggest pain.”

“Eh,” Tup said, gesturing vaguely with his pint.  “He’s better this year.  Or at least we’re not seeing much of him.  He’s been staying inside.  That makes him the elves’ problem.”  Tup raised an eyebrow and Ron laughed.  Tup finished off his pint and gestured at the barkeep with it.  “Mind you, you might get lucky too.  I imagine that Mr. Malfoy will pull him out of school for a few days when this event takes place in the fall.”

Ron took a careful sip.  “Do you know what this event’s all about?”  The last thing he wanted was to be found out as a spy.

“Nah,” Tup said, his eyes sliding away towards two young women at a table in the middle of the bar.  The blonde one was smiling coyly at him.  “But I’m guessing there’ll be a lot of people if those cottages are going to be used.”  Tup raised an eyebrow at her and she got up from her chair and began to saunter over.  

Ron could appreciate that Tup was attractive.  He was half a head taller than Ron and looked fantastic with his shirt off.  If it had seemed that Tup would be up for it, Ron would have enjoyed augmenting his summer with a bit of fooling around in the cottages.  But now Tup was rumbling nice things barely too quiet for Ron to hear to this curvy blonde who laughed in what were apparently the right places.  Ron finished his pint and tipped the barkeep.  He laid a hand on Tup’s shoulder and Tup turned his head so that he was still looking at the girl, but his ear pointed towards Ron.  “I’m gonna slide out, mate.  I’ll see you in the morning.”  Tup nodded once and then slid his attention back towards the girl.  It was another pleasantly cool night, and Ron took his time winding his way back up to the Manor.

 

Draco came up a couple of days later just after lunchtime and asked Ron if he could stay for a bit.  Ron shrugged and went back to hand shingles up to Tup.  “Chocolate is half medicinal,” Tup continued, accepting a shingle and lining it up.  “That dulls the enjoyment, now doesn’t it?”

“Of course not,” Ron said.  “What’s wrong with a candy that makes you feel better besides?  Good taste, plus a little lift.  You can’t say that peppermint does that.”

“No.  But that’s because it’s a candy, plain and simple.  You enjoy peppermint because it’s good, not because it’s making you like it.”

Ron chuckled as he handed the next one up.  “You make chocolate sound vindictive.”

“Well it is!  Peppermint is kind and gentle.”  Ron almost couldn’t hear Tup for his own laughing.  “It doesn’t beat you into submission like chocolate, ripping away your free will and telling you what to believe.”

“Okay, okay,” Ron said, turning to where Draco had made himself comfortable at the fountain, leaning gracefully back on his hands on the white stone.  Today’s oxford was crisply white and the trousers were pale blue.  “Draco, you settle it.  Peppermint or chocolate, which is the better candy.”

“Honestly?” he asked, knitting his brow together.  “You want me to answer.”

“Yeah,” Ron said, stealing a glance at Draco’s finely-boned wrists where his sleeves were rolled almost to his elbows.

Draco hesitated.  “It’s a hard question.  Give me some time to think about it.”

“Fair enough,” Ron said, and then handed another to Tup, who had been waiting.

 

“Peppermint, I think,” Draco had said.  Ron looked up startled.  He hadn’t noticed Draco leaning into his window.  It was just barely dark.  

“Do you?”

“Yes.  I wanted to side with you, I did, but you asked the question in the summer.  Peppermint’s refreshing, isn’t it?  If it had been winter, I would have thought of hot chocolate and you would have won easily.”  Draco looked relaxed, and this was more than Ron had heard him say since he’d come to the Manor.  So light and breezy about it too.  

Ron smiled.  “Well, suppose you should always follow your conscience.  Point conceded.”  Draco dipped his head politely.  

“What are you up to?  I mean,” he suddenly looked uncertain, like he was closing up again, “am I interrupting?”

“No, no.  I’m just studying for the Apparition license.”  He gestured vaguely at the schoolbooks that had taken over his table.

“Would you mind if I came in for a bit?  To study with you?”

“Not at all.”  Ron began hastily clearing space on the other side of the table for Draco.  He came in without any books in his hands, and without his satchel.  Draco drew his wand and transfigured the empty crate that the peaches had come in into a stool and pulled it up to the edge of the table.  Ron laughed.  “I had forgotten you could do that.”

Draco sat down and took Ron’s charms text out of the pile.  “It was interesting watching you today.  I couldn’t have done it, all that work without magic.”  He kept his eyes down on the book, flipping pages.

“You learn to do it,” Ron replied, watching him.  “To do what you have to.”  Draco barely nodded and his bangs fell down in front of his face.  Ron went back to his book.

 

Draco came again the next day, opened the door when Ron waved, then went to his stool and found his place in the Charms text.  This time, he’d brought parchment, a quill, and ink.  He took copious notes. The day after that was Saturday.

Ron was still lying in bed, relishing doing absolutely nothing, when there came a knock at the door.  He stumbled into the front room, still in only his shorts, and opened it, yawning.  Draco, with the top two buttons of his oxford undone, but in actual (designer weathered) blue jeans, gaped a little in shock.  “Hey, Draco.  What’s up?”

“Oh, well,” he said, focusing hard on Ron’s face.  “It was getting hot.  Thought you might like to go for a swim.”

“Is that allowed?” Ron asked with a smirk.  “Fraternizing with the hired help?”

Draco flushed and shook his head.  Ron waved Draco in to the dimmer cottage and wandered towards the bathroom to brush the morning taste from his mouth.  Draco cleared his throat and kept talking.  “The same way that they’re bound to report your misdeeds, the elves are bound not to tell on me.  Father thinks it will encourage me to ravish the local maidens and such.”  Ron could hear him moving around, rambling around the front room.

“Is _that_ what you do?” Ron asked, smoothing sunblock over his forehead and down to the tip of his nose.  

There was a silence before Draco replied.  “No.”  Ron fastened up his trousers and then sat on the edge of the bed to shove on his shoes, and Draco cleared his throat and then gestured vaguely at his own cheek.  Ron lifted his hand to his cheek and felt the smudge of sunblock that he then smoothed into his skin.  “What is that?” Draco asked.

Ron tied the laces on his trainers and stood up.  “Sunblock.”

“Oh,” Draco replied with half a smile, “then I guess you will refuse the sun protection charm that I was going to so kindly offer.”

“I’m not quite ready to let you point that thing at me.”  Ron pushed Draco playfully towards the door and they emerged into the relentless heat.

They walked mostly in silence across the grounds.  Draco pointed out the outbuildings and garden plots, and promised to teach Ron how to maneuver the hedge maze, which had been known on occasion to swallow a guest whole.  They ducked into the orchards and Ron shivered.  “Apples,” Draco said.  “The temperature’s been brought down to force another harvest.”  Ron pulled a yellow one from a low branch and ate it as they went.  On the far side of the orchard, once they broke through the trees, they stood on the edge of what looked like a large quarry. “The stones from the house came from here.”  At the bottom was a wide stone ledge, and then water.  Ron followed Draco carefully down steps that had been carved in.  He was glad that at least Draco had a wand.  

At the ledge, they laid down their towels and Ron quickly stripped to his shorts.  “Is it deep?” he asked, touching his foot to the pleasantly cool water.

“Right from the start,” Draco was a ways behind him.  “Careful you don’t slip.”  Ron brought his feet together and dove into the water.  It was crystal clear and perfectly cool.  

He popped up two meters from the edge, and then swam back, hanging onto the edge of the stone.  “Come on, Draco.  It’s fantastic.”  He shook his head to clear some of the water and licked his lips, noticing that it was salty.  When he blinked his eyes open, Draco was pulling his shirt up over his head instead of unbuttoning it.  There was something very beautiful about Draco.  Boys were supposed to be hot and rough and sexy.  Oliver had been all of those things and left bruises when they fooled around in the broom shed.  Ron wasn’t sure that Draco would be sexy like that.  He thought that Draco might be sexy arching in a bed and keening for more.  When he looked again, after losing himself in thought, Draco was down to a pair of blue swim trunks and heading for the edge.  Ron pushed off and swam backwards to give the both of them some room, then dunked his head in an attempt to make the images (and his new embarrassing problem downstairs) go away.  He pulled up to the ledge opposite their towels, and turned to rest his arms on the edge.  He watched Draco swim in long laps, calmed by the repetitiveness, until Draco stopped at the ledge perpendicular to Ron’s own and held on while he caught his breath.  Ron kicked his legs idly to feel the water move around them.

“Ron?” Draco asked quietly.  “What’s around your neck?”

Ron looked down.  After nearly two weeks with it on, he’d forgotten about the pendant.  He’d charmed it to stick to the back of his neck, no matter what.  “Lucky charm.”  Draco hmmed quietly, and kept staring at the drop.  Ron stayed still, looking back up at the orchard, until he could no longer handle Draco’s staring.  He dipped under the water and swam to the opposite corner.  Draco climbed out and dove in again, and they splashed around in near silence for a while, until Ron started to feel tired.  

He lifted himself smoothly out, and then went back to sit on his towel, stretching out on his side to face the water.  Draco swam another lap and a half, taking his time, and then came to the ledge directly in front of Ron and pushed himself out.  Ron closed his eyes.  He barely heard the footsteps circle around behind him and thought himself insane for lying there, wandless and blind with Draco Malfoy at his back.  He was about to turn when he heard a whispered spell and sank into his towel, charmed four inches thick and plush.  He rolled onto his stomach and laid his head on his crossed arms.  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Draco fall gently to his knees on his own charmed towel.  “Thanks,” Ron mumbled, trying to stay awake.  

Draco shrugged.  “If you grow up here, you learn some handy things.”  Draco tidied the corners of his towel and stretched out on his back.  

“You’re supposed to say ‘you’re welcome, Ron’.”

Draco tilted his head up to look at Ron and smirked.  “You’re welcome.”

 

When Ron woke up some time later, Draco was still there, having folded his clothes into a makeshift pillow.  He was lying on his back and reading Ron’s frayed, hand-me-down Charms text.  Ron smiled lazily and watched for a while, falling in and out of sleep.  He was awake for good, but still foggy, when he noticed the pale, pink-grey spots across the bridge of Draco’s nose.  “You’ve got freckles,” Ron said, reaching out to touch them without thinking about it.  “Never noticed before.”  

Ron drew his hand back and Draco reached up to cover his nose.  “Damn it.  My sun protection charm must have worn out.”  

He lifted his right hand to reach for his wand, but Ron laid gentle fingers on the back of his wrist.  “Don’t.  They’re cute.”

Draco blushed red, but managed a sneer.  “Men don’t typically aim to be cute, Weasley.”  

Ron shrugged and closed his eyes again.  “Mine are cute.”  

There was a pause while Ron knew Draco was regarding the bloom of freckles that the sun must have coaxed across his shoulders.  “They’re aren’t.  They’re ... oh, go back to sleep, Weasley.”  Ron smiled and counted it a win.

 

Ron returned to his cottage to find another letter from his mother on the table.  This one came with berry tarts.  He cracked open the first tart and was enjoying the taste of blackberries when words started to pour onto the page.  This letter was all business.  “Dear Ronald, You’ve been gone two weeks now and we haven’t heard anything of use.  I do not see the point of your staying there in danger when no real information seems to be coming your way.  Professor Snape, who spoke to Draco on Wednesday, assures me that you are still alive, but that the work is hard.  Know that you can come home whenever you want to, love.  We’ll figure out something else.”  He didn’t want to go home, and he didn’t write back.

Tup came early on Monday, ate breakfast with Ron and then told him about his weekend with the blonde from the pub while they pried the casements from the remaining windows and removed the last of the glass to a wheelbarrow.  Apparently she had her own apartment in Pauling Morley, ten miles down the road.  Tup had hitched a ride in with the cook, coming back from the farmer’s market down that way.  He had plans to see her again midweek, and was trying to avoid his father and the inevitable raised eyebrow.

But even Tup couldn’t refuse a direct summons and made his way to the orchards at lunchtime, while Ron hid in the shade of his cottage and started on the Charms text.  The bit of doodled-on parchment that Draco was using as a bookmark was already past the halfway point.  After lunch, Ron wheeled the broken glass up to the family stores, where it was taken off, and in exchange a tall stack of windowpanes were apparated down to the fountain.  Ron was sitting on the edge of the fountain, making ripples in the surface with his hand, when Tup returned, looking unharmed and carrying two pears, one of which he tossed to Ron.  “So it’s all okay with your Dad?”

Tup shrugged and fished out his pocket knife, which he used to carve his pear into four even sections.  “Says I’m my own man, which I am.”  He traded Ron the cut pear for the whole one and Ron took a bite.  “Also says that your Draco hasn’t been out of his room since Saturday dinner.”

“He’s not _my_ Draco,” Ron said, though he was surprised inside by a leap of fear in his stomach.  

“That’s not what Artemis Lee says.  She says she caught you two down at the quarry Saturday morning,”  Tup’s teasing was far from gentle and his scrunched nose was accompanied by a smile.  For Ron, it was rather like being home with his brothers again.  

“No one caught anyone,” Ron replied.  “At any rate, what’s he holed up in his room for?  Grounded?”  Ron hoped that whatever had happened was not in punishment for their trip to the quarry.  It had been the most pleasant experience of his summer so far.

“Dunno,” Tup shrugged.  “But Cook told me this morning that there was an owl before dinner and a loud screaming match between Mr. Malfoy and the young master, and he hasn’t come out since.”  Ron finished his pear in thoughtful silence, trying to think what could be in a single owl to cause that sort of action.  “Ron?  Ron?” Tup called, splashing him.  He’d obviously been calling Ron’s name for a bit.  “Come back to us, Ron.  Windows won’t install themselves.”

 

Draco came by again that night, tapping at the new glass in the front window with an approving look on his face, as if he had been skeptical that the structures would accept new windowpanes.  Ron waved him in.  “You don’t have to bother,” he said when Draco came in.  “You can just come on in.  You’re the only one that does.  I know it’s you.”

Draco’s eyes widened just a hair and he stood stock still for a moment before saying, “Thank you.”

“Besides,” Ron went back to his Apparition notes.  “You own the place anyway, or good as.”

“Yes, well,” Draco said, settling himself on his stool and finding his place in the Charms text.

They sat for a while, until Ron had gotten through the correct casting of the Apparition spell and a long chapter on horrible accidents that could befall the caster.  He looked up to find Draco still going through Charms, hunched over his notes with his feet up on the bottom rung of the stool.  “Draco?”  Ron asked.  When he didn’t get a response, he kicked gently at the stool.  “Draco?”  Draco looked up, shook his head and pushed his unruly bangs back into place.  “Ready for a break?  It’s been an hour.”

“Yeah, sure,” Draco pushed himself back from the table and stretched slowly.  

Ron slid his eyes off to the side to avoid looking at Draco’s forearms where his sleeves slid down.  There were three tarts left, but Ron took one and held it between them.  “Do you want some?”  Draco nodded and rolled his shoulders.  Breaking the blueberry tart in half, he gave half to Draco and kept half for himself.  He’d already burned his mother’s letters.  Four months ago, he would have taken the opportunity to poison Draco.  Draco broke off a corner and sucked the blueberry filling from his fingers.  Ron drew idle circles in the margins of his parchment.  “So, I hear there was a dust-up up at the house this weekend.”  He wasn’t sure Draco would answer.  The whole affair had sounded ugly.

“I got a letter from Gregory,” Draco said, and then quietly took two more bites from his tart.  “From his father, really.  Greg’s parents weren’t ever thrilled that he was friends with me.  Vincent’s either.  They’re ... definitely not coming this summer.”  He finished his tart.  “And that’s the end of that.”  

Draco licked more tart filling from his fingers and Ron looked out of the window.  He’d felt like he had to get away from Harry and Hermione, just for a little while, but he couldn’t imagine not seeing them at all.  “Well, at least you have me,” he said, with a sideways smile directed at Draco.

“Oh, _fantastic_ ,” Draco rolled his eyes elaborately and went back to his book.

“Take the book,” Ron said later, when Draco was rolling up his scroll and putting his quill back in its case.  

“Nah,” he said, getting to his feet and heading for the door.  “Thanks for the tart.”

“It was half a tart.”  Ron got to the door first and held it open for Draco, leaning against the solid wood.  

“If you’re being picky.”  Draco crossed the threshold, and then turned back.  He looked down and then up again at Ron, biting his lip.  “Thank you.  For coming this summer.  Even though you didn’t do it for me.”

“No problem,” Ron said.  And then, for no clear reason, he leaned down and kissed Draco, gently, on the mouth.

 

Later, lying in bed, waiting for Lucius Malfoy to come in and slap him or hex him or whatever vice-Dark Lords did to the labourers who molested their sons, Ron couldn’t think of a single stupider thing that he could have done.  The worst part, he figured, was yet to come.  He had to think of some way to explain his ejection from the grounds to the Order (despite the fact that surely Snape would hear the real story) and then he had to face Draco for another year at school, knowing that they’d been friends for a little while, before Ron had ballsed it up.

 

The next day, Draco didn’t come down at all during the daytime.  When caught at lunch, Hanny reported that, as far as she knew, he hadn’t been out of his room since Saturday.  Ron ate his ham sandwich and stared out of the front window at the fountain, trying to puzzle through it.  They’d started on painting the cottages that morning, doing the insides and the outsides at once so that the fifth cottage would be dry by the time they were finished painting the first.  Ron felt like his skin was sheeted in outdoor all-weather paint and got into the shower as soon as Tup had left.  He was sitting on the floor in his pajama bottoms and finishing the dish of ice cream that had accompanied dinner when Draco knocked on the window.  Ron rolled to his feet, setting the dish on the table as he passed on his way to open the door.  “I told you that you didn’t have to knock,” he told Draco, who didn’t seem keen to break the silence.

“Seemed different today, that’s all.”  

“Well, it’s not,” _unless you’re here to hex me_.  “Come in. ”  Gathering his courage, Ron turned away from Draco and leaned back up against the ledge of the far window.  Draco came in and shut the door behind him.  His hands were empty.  Draco perched on the stool by the table and reached across the table to drag his fingers across Ron’s quill.  Ron crossed his arms and waited.  He’d hoped, in a best-case-scenario sort of way, that Draco would come with his scrolls and they’d study and pretend it hadn’t happened.  Now, they seemed unable to avoid talking about it.  “Look, Draco,” Ron rubbed his hand across his face, unsure how to form an apology.  

“Why did you do it, yesterday?  Kiss me, I mean.”  He looked up and steadied himself on the stool with one hand, as if waiting for the worst.  

Ron didn’t know what he could possibly say that would hurt Draco in the way he seemed to be expecting.  Perhaps if he told Draco that he was an Order operative, sent to worm details of the fall gathering out of him, but that wasn’t exactly true.  It wasn’t the reason why.  “It isn’t important.  We can just forget it and move on, okay?”

“Okay,” Draco said, but it was more of a mumble said as he slid off of the stool and headed for the door.  

“Draco, wait!  It’s not like that.”

Draco turned and looked angry.  “It’s not like what, Weasley?  I suppose you just spend your summers kissing anyone who crosses your path, and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Ron pushed off from the ledge and stared him down.  “I don’t, and don’t believe that I would.  I did it because I wanted to, all right?  Because you’re fun and you’re gorgeous and I wanted to!”  Ron was inches in front of Draco, daring him to challenge anything Ron had said.  

“You’d do it again, then?” Draco said, and he didn’t sound angry anymore.  Perhaps curious.

Ron nodded and relaxed.  “If you’d let me.”  Draco licked his lips, then nodded, and Ron raised a hand to cup the back of Draco’s head and kiss him again.  Draco tilted his head experimentally and parted his lips just wide enough for Ron to lick between them.  The hand that had been holding Draco’s head in place slipped down to stroke the side of his neck and Draco moaned quietly.  Ron pulled away with a smile.  “So it’s okay then?”  Draco tried to tug Ron to him again, but Ron backed up and sat on the floor against the wall.  Draco cast a quick Privacy spell (which caused all of the windows to fog over) before dropping to his knees beside Ron.  Ron tilted his head back against the wall and waited patiently until Draco bent forward to kiss him.  He raised a hand to Draco’s hip to steady him, but kept himself from doing anything else.  He wanted it to be Draco’s turn to do what he wanted.  Draco braced himself with a hand against the wall over Ron’s shoulder.  Ron was tempted to break away from the kiss to lick at Draco’s too-delicate wrist.  Somehow, out here, with only Tup and Draco for company, it felt like it had been much longer than two weeks.  Like he had been fascinated with Draco for much longer.  Draco whom he could look at, but never before could touch.  Draco’s tongue dipped in to touch the inside of Ron’s bottom lip, then ventured carefully forward.  Draco kissed as if he’d never done it before, and Ron wondered if he was the first.  He was surprised when he found himself hoping that he was.  His arm at Draco’s waist trembled as he fought to not grab hold and Draco broke away to look down at the offending hand.  

“Is this uncomfortable for you?”  

Ron shook his head.  “Just...” he hooked his hands behind Draco’s thighs and tugged until Draco straddled his legs, sitting practically on Ron’s knees.  Ron didn’t quite trust himself if Draco got any closer.  Draco leaned forward with a slightly worrying smirk on his face and ran his teeth across Ron’s bottom lip.  Ron couldn’t help the low moan that escaped from his throat, or the gentle closing of his eyes.  His hands dropped to Draco’s knees and he let his head loll back against the wall while Draco kept on kissing him.

 

The sunblock was a fantastic invention and Ron had asked his mother, in his last letter, to thank Professor Snape for it.  Unfortunately, it didn’t do a thing about the way the heat spiked in the afternoon.  Ron and Tup, both shirtless in deference to the heat, leaned over the pool to splash themselves with water.  Apparently not cooling fast enough, Tup propped himself on the edge and dunked his whole head.  Ron laughed as Tup rose out of the water and shook his head, the water flinging off his hair and at Ron.  Tup’s blond waves had turned golden brown wet and Tup ran a hand through his hair to push it back from his eyes.  “Whose turn is it to go up to Stores?”

“Yours, mate,” Ron said with a grin.  Rather than bickering for it, Tup sighed dramatically and began pushing the burrow full of empty paint cans up to Family Stores.  Ron was going to make himself comfortable by the pool when he noticed Draco sitting under the tree he seemed to favor and watching him.  Ron got up and went over to the tree, Draco watching him the whole time.  The shade felt instantly cool across his over-warmed shoulders.  Draco had craned his neck all the way back to look up at Ron, so Ron dropped down to sit beside him.  “How long have you been here?”

“Long enough.” Ron noticed the open novel on his thighs.  “You can’t think I’d miss a chance to watch you and Tup frolic half-naked.”  Draco’s trademark smirk twitched across his lips and Ron wanted to kiss him, public or not.  Draco raised his hand to scratch a thumbnail at a spot of white paint on the front of Ron’s shoulder.  “You are _covered_ in paint,” he noted.

Ron looked down to find that it was true; white paint was spotted or streaked all over him.  “Occupational hazard.”  He glanced around to see that no one was about, and then leaned close to Draco.  “Are you coming tonight?”

“Only if you do too.”  Draco’s whisper was husky, sexy, and Ron had to concentrate hard on the paint spots on his jeans in order to keep from developing a rather noticeable problem.  They hadn’t done anything more than kiss in the three weeks since that had started, and Ron had taken to jerking off, fast and loud, before the Silencing Charm wore off.  It felt more like a long, elaborate tease than frustration, and the idea of coming to the end of that road made his head spin.  Draco settled back against the tree trunk and propped his book on his legs.  “Tup’s coming.”

Ron realized that he didn’t care at all if Tup knew that he was particularly fond of the young Master, but pulled away from Draco anyway.  “Well, better get back to work then.”  Ron gained his feet again and brushed off the seat of his jeans.  He felt like he should say something to Draco in parting, but nothing felt right, so he went to start unloading the wheelbarrow.

Draco started back up to the house in the late afternoon, after Ron and Tup had started painting the interior of the fifth cottage.  “He’s down here a lot, isn’t he?” Tup remarked, edging carefully around the new window.  

“Yeah, suppose,” Ron said noncommittally.  What was happening with Draco didn’t seem like the sort of thing he should share lightly.  He didn’t even seem like something he could put into words.

“Not that I mind, see.  He seems all right, when he deigns to open his mouth.”  Tup flipped a curl back from his forehead before dipping his brush into the can again.  Ron mumbled in agreement and fixed a spot he’d missed by the closet.

There was another letter from his mother on the table at dinnertime, sealed inside a box with a single gingersnap and a brand new copy of Advanced Potions for the N.E.W.T. Level Exam.  He had no doubt that the rest of the residents at Grimmauld Place were cutting into his baked goods.  The letter was mostly to make sure he was all right, to implore him to write to Snape thanking  him for the textbook, and to let him know that Hermione was studying wards, just in case.  It was probably more for Hermione’s sake at this point.  His mother seemed to have given up imploring him to return to headquarters.  Instead, she seemed more than a little peeved that he had returned no actual helpful information.  Ron could feel his mother turning into a field marshal.  He would have to write her before the weekend with something.  Maybe he’d make something up.  He fished his box of matches from his duffel bag and lit the letter on fire.

Ron had moved his chair to under the back windows and was definitely reading and not at all staring out the front windows when he happened to notice Draco approaching.  Ron had swung the door casually open, as if he had nothing better to do than loiter in doorways, when Draco came to the threshold and waited, his eyes dropping to Ron’s shoulder.  “What?” Ron asked, looking at the spot.  He’d showered just before dinner and taken care to scratch away all of the paint.  Draco’s tongue licked quickly at his bottom lip and Ron grinned, leaning close to Draco.  “You can do what you like, Draco.”  

Draco surged forward, bearing Ron back and kicking the door shut, casting the privacy spell wordlessly.  Draco dropped his mouth to Ron’s bare shoulder and licked at the spot that had  earlier been covered in paint.  Ron stopped in the center of the room and let his head fall back as Draco made his way from the shoulder, up the neck, to Ron’s ear, marking his path with short, electrifying licks.  Ron felt Draco’s breath hot and damp across his ear.  “I’ve been wanting to do that all evening.”  

Ron pushed his hand up under the edge of Draco’s pale yellow shirt and drew it across Draco’s stomach.  “Off.  You’ve been watching me shirtless all day.  Turnabout’s fair play.”  Draco pulled away, causing Ron’s hand to slip across his ribs before letting go, and walked casually towards the bedroom, stripping the oxford over his head.  He couldn’t remember Draco ever having been in his bedroom.  By the time he could focus again, Draco was lying on his bed, peeling out of his trousers.  Ron walked as fast as he could without seeming overeager, but Draco sat up and held his hand out in warning before Ron could lie down beside him.  

“Jeans.”  Draco said, waiting.  Ron pried open the buttons while Draco slipped under the covers.  Ron entered on the other side, letting the cool sheets drop over his side while he squirmed across towards Draco.  Draco had that Slytherin smirk on his face again and Ron kissed him, threading the fingers of one hand through Draco’s hair.  Draco let Ron be aggressive, pushing Draco back slightly and pressing kisses to his cheek.  Ron moved just a little closer and his thigh brushed against Draco’s erection.  Draco turned his head sharply away, gasping, and moved backwards, away from Ron.  He shook once, and then thrust his leg out from under the blankets, obviously making to leave.  Ron caught his arm and held him, stayed still even as Draco tried to pull away.  Draco’s wand was still in his trouser pocket, well within reach.  If he wanted to go, he could.  Draco pulled, and then stilled, falling against the pillow.  Ron waited quietly for Draco to turn to him.  “I’m sorry,” Draco said.  “This was a mistake.  I should go.”

Ron released his arm slowly, as if dealing with a wild animal.  He had no idea what had changed in the last ten minutes.  “You can if you want to, but you don’t have to.  I want you to stay.”  Ron watched as Draco took a few deep breaths, nodded once at the ceiling, and then hurled himself at Ron again, his hand going unerringly for the waistband of Ron’s y-fronts.  “Whoa, whoa, Draco.”  He caught Draco at the upper arm and held him off.  “Slow down, all right.  You’re just going to get yourself worked up again.”  

“Look,” Draco said, shaking off Ron’s hand and obviously getting a little angry, “I just thought that you wanted me to...” he trailed off and his eyes darted away.  

Ron pushed down a laugh.  Of all of the things he had expected for the summer, Draco Malfoy putting out in order to keep him around had not been on the list.  “I just wanted you to come down so we could hang out or whatever.  _You’re_ the one who dragged me in here.”  He slipped an arm over Draco’s waist to make it clear that he was just teasing.

The corner of Draco’s mouth twitched.  “Oh, so now the fact that you’re attractive is my fault.”  He tilted a bit closer and Ron rewarded him with a kiss.

“We can play chess, if you want.  Or perhaps you’d like to get ahead in Charms...” Ron was cut off as Draco rolled gently on top of him and kissed him again.  Draco’s legs fell to either side of Ron’s and he propped himself on his knees, running a hand through Ron’s hair.  “Really, Draco,” Ron said.  His fingertips trailed down Draco’s ribs.  “We don’t have to.”  Draco sat back, pressing their erections together.  The feeling shot right through Ron’s spine, but he didn’t close his eyes.  He watched as Draco squeezed his eyes shut, twisted, and shivered.  

“Okay?” Draco asked, when he had regained himself.  Ron nodded furiously.  Draco slid forward and there was the delicious electric feeling again, made more intense when Draco dipped down to kiss him again.  Ron’s hands slipped around to Draco’s rear and pressed him closer.  Draco made a keening noise in the back of his throat and Ron rumbled something unintelligible after him.  Once they settled into a rhythm (spurred by Draco’s short, harsh gasps), Draco held on to Ron’s shoulders and let Ron guide him.  Sweat had started to bloom in tiny droplets across the top of Ron’s chest and on Draco’s forehead, when Draco opened his eyes and gasped Ron’s name and came.  Ron drew Draco into a kiss and followed him over.  

Afterwards, after they had caught their breath and Draco had stopped moaning and Ron had spread his palms over Draco’s back to hold them together, Draco rolled them onto their sides, and then rolled away from Ron, returning with his wand.  Ron waited until Draco had cast his Cleaning Charm before dragging him close again.  Draco tucked up close and had begun talking about paint or something when Ron dozed off.  He woke again, not long after, to find Draco still curled close, but reading his History of Magic text.  It was, Ron knew, the only one small enough to be comfortable enough to hold aloft, but Draco had levitated it.  Draco was reaching up to turn the page when Ron laid a gentle kiss just in front of his ear.  “You’re awake,” Draco said with some curiosity.  He closed the book and laid it beside them before kissing Ron properly on the mouth.  Ron smiled under him and thought about starting again.  “I have to get back, but I didn’t want to just run out on you in the night.”

“Good of you.  Can’t you stay just a little longer?”

“Can’t.”  Draco was already sliding out of bed and putting on his trousers.  “Father’s leaving on a trip tomorrow and I will be required to be presentable at six AM to receive his instructions.”  He put his shirt on over his head and stowed his wand in his trouser pocket.  Ron sat up and scooted to Draco’s side of the bed so that they could kiss goodbye.  “All of this kissing and I’ll start thinking you’re fond of me, Weasley.”

Ron was absolutely calm when he said, “I am.”   Draco closed his eyes and turned away briefly, then told Ron that he’d see him in the morning and dashed off.  Ron laid back down and wondered if he’d gone too far.  If this had been purely for sex on Draco’s part, then he’d made the biggest possible mistake.  Not to mention the incredible danger he was in, falling for the son of You-Know-Who’s right hand man.  He pulled up the covers and thought about going home.

Draco knocked on his window the next morning while he was having breakfast.  Ron waved him in and Draco sat on his customary stool.  “Tup broke his ankle on the way up this morning,” he said casually, stealing a toast point.  “We sent for the mediwizard, who fixed it clean, but says that it has to stay elevated all day or horrible things will happen.”

Ron nodded, then stopped.  “Why did _you_ send for the mediwizard?”

“Our village,” Draco said shrugging.  Father’s very serious about taking care of our villagers.”  Draco took another bite of toast.  “At any rate, he won’t be coming up today.”  

Ron shrugged and loaded his fork with scrambled eggs.  “I’m just painting the insides.  Can do it as well by myself.”

“Well, if you need help, it’s not as if I’ve got any pressing concerns.”  Ron looked up and Draco was staring seriously at his toast.  

He felt what was becoming a quite familiar smile tugging on the corners of his mouth.  “That’d be great.  Thanks.”

All of Ron’s belongings, plus the furniture, had been piled on the lawn.  Draco had stood and watched as Ron painted the first wall of the bedroom.  “What?” Ron finally asked, turning with the roller still in his hand.  It was barely ten o’clock and already warm in the cottage.  

“No, it’s nothing.”  Draco put his hands in his pockets.  Ron loaded up his roller again with the cream colored paint and painted another swath of wall.  “Just, it’s very interesting how you’re managing to get by without your wand.  Do things the hard way and all.”

In that moment, Draco sounded just like his father, and that was a thought Ron had never expected to have.  He suppressed a grin.  “You’ll get the full effect if you come over here and help,” he said mostly to the wall.  He didn’t hear anything until Draco was right at his side.

“Said I would.”  

Ron set Draco to doing the edging.  Draco had a slight tendency to stare out of windows he was supposed to be painting around, going all dreamy for a few minutes, and then suddenly focusing on his work very intently.  

Afterwards, they ate dinner out on the lawn in front of the pool.  The fumes inside were bad enough to knock a man unconscious.  They’d gotten through the last of the front room only through stubbornness and a Breeze charm.  Hanny brought them sandwiches and sugar cookies and pumpkin juice at the usual hour, just when it was beginning to get dark.  

Draco had rolled his sleeves practically all the way up, and they’d kept unrolling down to his elbows anyway.  Ron, like a gentleman, put a shirt on for dinner.  They sat quietly, working through their roast turkey sandwiches and watching the cottages as if they were entertainment.  After Ron had sucked the last of the mayonnaise from his thumb and Draco had started on his first sugar cookie, Draco slid over just a bit, so that their arms touched, and laid back against the slight rise.  Ron laid beside him and Draco broke off half of his cookie and handed it to Ron.  “I always did like Astronomy,” Draco said.  “Not for the portents and all, more for the geography.”  Ron waited quietly for him to go on.  “It’s just memorization, but it’s pretty memorization.”  

“Are you taking it next year?”  Ron said with his mouth full.  He didn’t think Draco minded anymore.  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Draco shake his head, and then he abruptly changed the topic.

“You should, or you can, if you would like to, sleep in my room tonight.”  Ron stilled in his chewing.  Not only did it sound insanely dangerous, it would be the first time in all of this that he had seen Draco’s bedroom, or any of the bedrooms.  He hadn’t been in the house since his painful meeting with Mr. Malfoy.  In a flash, the slight hesitance in Draco’s voice was gone and replaced by the sharpness that he had favored at school.  “You’re fun to snog, and it would be a shame if you were suffocated in the night.”

Ron knew that there was dusty, but usable furniture in the third cottage.  He kept that to himself.  “Put that way, why not?”  He pushed himself halfway up to grab another cookie, then dutifully broke it in half and gave it half to Draco.  

They laid there until the sky was fully dark and the grass was starting to get cold around them.  Hanny had removed their dinner dishes, so Ron didn’t feel that there was anything else to do before they went up to the house.  Draco’s eyes darted towards the unassuming pile of Ron’s things.  “Grab your books and we’ll get some studying in before bed.”

Ron rolled his eyes, “This is worse than a summer with Hermione”, but dutifully marched down to his bag and retrieved the Charms text, his Apparition text, and, as a special treat for Draco, his unopened copy of Advanced Potions.  

Draco looked up from the pool and took the text with joy in his eyes.  “You’re taking Advanced Potions?”

Ron shrugged.  “It’s required to get into Auror training.  But we’ll have at least one class together next year,” he finished his sentence with what he thought was a charming grin, but Draco turned quickly and led the way up to the house.

The house seemed more welcoming to Draco, which Ron supposed made sense.  Draco moved through it with a sort of off-hand grace, proving with every close pass around a corner or neat avoidance of a precarious end-table that he had learned to walk in this house and knew all of its tricks.  Ron tried to be silent all the same; Lucius might be away, but it couldn’t be a good idea to be found going up to the young master’s room.  They wound again through the dining room and down the side hallway to the grand entrance hall.  Draco marched up the stairs with the same utilitarian steps that Ron used to get up to his own bedroom at the Burrow, and he didn’t notice that Ron was slowly falling behind, inspecting inlays and trying to decode the pattern in the carpet.  

He swung his bedroom door (second from the stairs on the right) open wide and went in, his presence setting the candles ablaze.  They seemed more for show, when Ron came in and shut the door behind him.  The room had the same golden glow that suffused the cabins.  Draco had a sitting room, which briefly baffled Ron.  It was done in the same white and gold as the rest of the house, and had a sofa and two wing chairs and a coffee table in front of a roaring fireplace.  Ron dropped his books on the coffee table and then went exploring.  Draco’s desk was pushed up against floor-to-ceiling windows.  Draco went over to release the drapes and block off the windows, tugging free the cord on each.  “Would be faster to wave your wand at them,” Ron said while looking at a picture on Draco’s mantle of Draco and Crabbe and Goyle and Millicent Bulstrode at the quarry.  None of them looked particularly pleased to see him.  

“Got used to it,” Draco said, and Ron could hear the implied laugh.  Him of all people.  The carpet was so lush and thick that Ron felt wobbly on it.  He followed Draco’s example and kicked off his shoes, then made himself at home on the sofa.  Draco held up the Charms and Apparition texts, and handed over the Apparition text when Ron gestured resignedly for it.  

“The test is coming up sooner than I’d like.”

Draco sat at the other end, turning to face him and put his socked feet up on the cushions.  Ron turned to mirror him.  “When are you taking it?” Draco asked absently while adjusting the pillows behind him and dragging the Potions text towards him.

“Day before we leave for school.”  He kicked his feet up to mirror Draco’s position.  He was expecting a follow-up question; Draco had never asked when Ron would be leaving, but Draco had summoned a scroll of blank parchment and a quill and was silent and focused on the first page of the Potions text.  Ron found his place in his book.

 

Ron didn’t look up again until the clock on the mantle chimed eleven.  He stretched a little and closed his book, then noticed that Draco was absorbed in his book.  The quill and scroll had fallen to the floor, three lines written, and Draco was holding the book in both hands, studying it intently.  This sort of behavior from Hermione usually met with an eye roll from Ron, but the intensity was gorgeous and sexy on Draco.  Ron laid his hand gently on Draco’s bare ankle and waited patiently for Draco to look up at him.  He looked slightly puzzled.  “It’s after eleven,” Ron said gently.  “Ready for bed?”

Draco’s eyebrows lifted and he sucked his bottom lip between his teeth for just a moment.  “Yeah.”  He drawled it quietly and Ron felt himself get hard.  “Just let me finish this chapter.”  Ron laughed to himself while Draco found his place again and then stared idly towards the fire, running his fingers back and forth over Draco’s ankle.  Ron turned away from the hearth when he heard Draco closing the book and setting it on the coffee table.  Draco smiled at him, warm and companionable, and then rose from the sofa, stepped over the scroll, and headed for the bedroom, fingers already undoing the buttons of his shirt.  Ron watched him go, then scrambled up after him, coming to the doorway just as the lights came up.  This was the first room of the Manor that Ron had seen that felt actually lived in.  The room was cream and gold, like everything else, but Draco’s school trunk was pushed against a wall, open and full of books, magazines spilled off of the bedside table, a brand-new Nimbus 4000 Pro was tilted up in a corner, splashed with mud.  Ron stopped to run his fingers along the broom handle (now available in a variety of balanced weights).  The sound of sliding fabric came from behind him and he looked back just in time to see Draco’s shirt slide off of his shoulders, which were shockingly pale and naked.  Draco tossed it into the hamper by the bathroom door and then started on his belt.  It seemed so easy for Draco, as if they’d been undressing together for ages.  Ron dragged off his grass-stained rugby shirt and kicked off his jeans, stashing both on an armchair, before he slid into bed on the side farthest from the magazines.  Draco stripped down to his boxers and then peeled back a corner of the covers, sat before swinging his legs under, and shimmied into Ron’s arms, making himself comfortable pressed up close.  Ron tapped his chin to tip Draco’s face up for a kiss, and the lights went out, aware that the young Master was ready for bed.  One of Draco’s hands slithered across Ron’s stomach to tuck under his back, and Ron laughed gently against Draco’s mouth.  “What?” Draco asked, a lilt of amusement in his voice.

“How are we going to keep _this_ quiet at school?  With me sneaking into the dungeons or you up to the Tower at all hours.”  Ron was about to tug Draco up for another kiss, when Draco rolled suddenly away and seemed to be making himself quite comfortable as far from Ron as possible.  Ron took a deep breath and stilled himself.  Draco tended to spook; he’d learned that the night before.  No sense in pushing or rushing him.  That seemed like a one-way ticket back to Grimmauld Place.  He waited until Draco had settled, and then laid a hand on his back.  He was content to wait.  

Ron’s eyes were closing a few minutes later, when Draco took a deep breath and spoke quietly.  “I’m not going back.  To Hogwarts.”  He paused again.  “The Dark Lord is coming here.”  Draco said.  He sounded nearly panicked.  “That’s the gathering.  He’s found a more suitable body, a new young follower, and he’ll be stronger than ever once he’s...”  Draco shuddered under Ron’s hand and Ron stayed still and quiet.  “Father thinks that, with things gearing up here, I could learn more at his side.”  

This time, in the silence, Ron knew that he should say something.  He hadn’t yet told Draco when he would be leaving.  Now, he didn’t want to.  He slid his hand down to Draco’s waist and pulled gently until Draco turned.  He had wanted to tuck Draco up against his side, calm him a little (calm the both of them), but Draco rolled right over and on top of him, planting his knees outside of Ron’s hips, his hands outside of Ron’s shoulders.  He looked down, his blond bangs hanging down nearly low enough to brush Ron’s forehead.  “So, are you going to leave now?  I know that evil is a turn off for you Gryffindors.”  Draco clenched his jaw and locked his elbows.  

Ron hadn’t thought it would be this easy to get the information that he’d come for.  He wasn’t sure if he could have ever asked outright, but Draco had told him, because he trusted him.  He could pack up his things and go back to Grimmauld Place, not stay to help Tup bring in the new furniture, to replace the two shattered mirrors.  Ron shook his head.  “I don’t want to.”  Draco’s shoulders fell; he looked relieved, or tired.  He fastened his mouth to the side of Ron’s neck and tilted to lean on one hand, pushing the other beneath Ron’s boxers.  “Draco, no,” Ron gasped, just as Draco’s hand closed over his erection.  Ron’s arm lifted up to wrap around Draco’s waist, unable to push him away.  Draco squeezed and Ron shuddered, his eyes falling closed.  “You don’t have to.”  

Draco licked at the shell of Ron’s ear and his voice followed, low and rough.  “I want to.”  Ron arched up against him and hooked his hand in the waistband of Draco’s silky boxers, pushing at them.  He wasn’t going to be alone in this.  Draco moved away from him just long enough to wrestle his way out of the underwear, then dropped down close again.  Ron had taken advantage of Draco’s temporary absence (and the lovely vision of Draco flushed and stripping) to wrap his own hand around his cock, but the accidental brush of Draco’s erection against the head of his own caused Ron to shudder, turn his head sharply, and bite back a moan.  “Hmm,” Draco said.  Just his murmur sounded naughty.  “You like that?”  Ron didn’t move to say yes or no, but Draco’s fingers gently unwound his from their hold on his cock, then Draco twined their fingers together and pressed Ron’s hand to the pillow.  Ron stayed still, afraid that Draco would want something that he wasn’t ready to give up.  “Don’t move your hands,” he whispered, and then, with a passing kiss to Ron’s collarbone, started sliding down.  

Ron hadn’t quite figured out what was happening, his eyes trained on Draco’s pale form moving in the dark, when his shorts were pulled down far enough to trap his thighs and Draco’s tongue ran up the length of his cock.  Ron made a noise that was far less dignified than a gasp, and jerked, stretching upward but not away.  Draco took the head carefully, experimentally into his mouth and flicked his tongue across the top.  “Draco,” Ron breathed, hooking his hands behind the mattress to keep from grabbing him.  There was a sense of loss, then, as Draco pulled away, and Ron looked down to find Draco carefully studying it, as though trying to understand how it worked.  Ron was about to tell Draco that he didn’t have to do this, when Draco suddenly tipped it towards his mouth and sucked down as far as he could.  Ron’s eyes closed and he arched and focused as hard he could on not coming.  He felt Draco’s mouth move away and Draco’s hand close around him, but it wasn’t until Draco blanketed his side and lowered his careful tongue to that spot on Ron’s shoulder, the moment that Ron was sharply reminded that _this was Draco_ , did he come violently, using his forearm to muffle his scream.  A few minutes later, when Ron had managed to calm his breaths and open his eyes, Draco was smiling at him, smug and triumphant.  Ron tilted up to kiss him.  “You look awfully chipper,” he said, lifting up slightly and tilting to roll Draco onto his side.  “Considering that we have some unfinished business.”  He helped himself to another kiss and closed his hand around Draco’s erection.  

Draco arched and exhaled quickly twice and Ron bent to press his teeth to Draco’s shoulder.  He had been right.  Draco was beautiful like this.  More so when he hissed Ron’s name, begging him to move his hand.  He wanted to slip down, to return the favor, but Draco held Ron’s head between his hands and pulled him up to kiss again.  Draco was hissing, or maybe whispering, frantically into his mouth.  Ron sped his strokes to the sounds of what might have been ‘please’ or ‘yes’.  Draco laid his hands on Ron’s back and pressed them close together, and then closer, pulling until Ron couldn’t catch his breath.  Draco suddenly turned his head sharply and made a shaky whining sound just as the first of the wet hit Ron’s thigh.  Ron kissed behind Draco’s ear and made himself comfortable, nuzzling there, as Draco’s whines settled into pants.  His strokes slowed and stopped, and he laid his hand on Draco’s stomach, waiting calmly.  He definitely was not thinking about going back to Hogwarts without Draco, but it seemed like Draco should know how much time they had left.

Draco finally pulled back far enough to turn his head to Ron.  His hair was clinging to his damp forehead, but he was smiling like it was his birthday and Ron smiled too.  “Now who’s smug?” Draco asked.  He rolled away for his wand and Ron’s hand slipped softly from its resting place.  Draco cast the cleaning charm at Ron over his shoulder, and then returned.  

“Draco,” he started, as Draco made himself comfortable under the covers.  “I do have to go, in a little more than a week.”

Draco pulled up his comforter.  “Please don’t talk about it anymore, Ron.”  Ron settled obediently beside Draco.  Maybe it would be all right if they both ignored it.

 

Mr. Malfoy returned on Monday.  Ron assumed correctly that Draco would be scarce Monday night, and resolved to make serious progress at Charms.  Draco’s bookmark was taunting him from the beginning of Chapter Ten.  It was after dinner when he got to Chapter Six: Uses of Dehydration Spells, Example Two: Making Paint Dry.  Ron smirked at no one in particular.

 

Things were moving faster at the Manor.  Ron noted this in a letter to his mother, along with the details Draco had given him about the fall gathering.  The apples in the orchard were being picked, the hedge maze was getting trimmed, and the lawns were all being mowed.  The elves on the other side of the Manor windows were nearly flying about the place working, more of them than he remembered the Malfoys having.  He and Tup had all of the furniture in by Thursday, when he received a reply (in a box of cinnamon sugar cookies).  It was short, hoping he was well and informing that Professor Snape would come to get him on Tuesday afternoon.  Wednesday was his Apparition Test.  Thursday was the first of September.  

 

Draco finished Ron’s Potions text under his tree while Ron and Tup put in new mirrors, but he kept coming by in the evenings to read some more.  Ron understood now that Draco was picking up all of the information he’d miss in seventh year, but that didn’t stop him from distracting Draco every night.  Draco would read for maybe a half hour, maybe an hour, before Ron would look up and notice the little line between Draco’s eyebrows, or that Draco has sucked his bottom lip between his teeth, and he’d be pressing Draco back towards the bedroom.  Draco gave as good as he got, slamming Ron up against the wall without preamble on Saturday night, and sneaking in to wake him on Monday morning for a repeat performance.

 

Mr. Malfoy came down on Monday afternoon to inspect their work.  Tup and Ron stood by the fountain, worried that he would find fault in something and withhold their summer’s pay.  He was wearing all black again, this time a cloak with snakes embroidered into the lapels.  Ron couldn’t imagine how he stood the heat.  He had his stick with him and rapped sharply on every repaired hole and replaced door.  He strolled in and out of the cottages for twenty minutes before coming out to stare at Ron and Tup as though he was inspecting the troops.  “Very nice job, boys.  You had me worried there at the beginning, Mr. Weasley.  I was afraid that you would be as incompetent as your father.”  Just as Ron’s cheeks were beginning to go red with rage, Mr. Malfoy reached into his cloak and removed two brown pay packets.  “Don’t spend it all in one place.”

 

Draco slept with him on Monday night.  Just slept.  He came over after dinner, read for a bit while Ron packed behind him, and then said that he wanted to go to bed, even if the sun had just barely gone down.  He seemed tired and depressed, but Ron couldn’t blame him.  He wasn’t as thrilled about leaving as he thought he should be.  Ron brushed his teeth and stared at himself in the mirror for a while (“Malfoy!” his reflection seemed to be saying.  “Of all people!”), then headed to bed.  Draco was staring blankly at the other wall, but was naked in the center of the bed.  Ron pulled off his t-shirt with a sigh and then kicked off his jeans before climbing under the covers.  Draco came right for him, kissing Ron before he could say anything.  It was aggressive, but not intended to go anywhere.  He let Draco tilt him back a little and kept going.   Draco’s fingers slipped along Ron’s side and curled into a fist.  Draco broke away for air and Ron whispered his name.  Draco responded by coming back fiercer than ever, curling his hand around Ron’s side and letting his nails bite just a little.  His teeth closed briefly on Ron’s bottom lip.  Draco seemed determined to win, though there was nothing here for the winning, and Ron felt like he was being ruined for other boys.  

Draco slid away just a little bit and, in order to stay together, Ron followed, turning onto his side.   Draco calmed then, lying his hand on Ron’s chest and being far more gentle in his kissing.  He stopped scratching too.  Draco finally pulled away completely, snuggling close and using up half of Ron’s pillow.  “That was something to remember me by.”

Ron laughed and pulled the quilt up over them.  It wasn’t until they were both settled and still that Ron asked another question.  “Do you want to stay here?”

Draco shifted a bit but didn’t open his eyes.  “You mean instead of going back to school?  No.”

“What will happen to you if you stay?”  The Privacy Charm was up, but Ron still whispered.

“Dunno.  Don’t want to think about it.  Can’t, okay?”  There was a long pause before he said, “And it’s not if.”  Ron slid closer and laid his arm across Draco’s waist, holding him close.  He had no idea what to say, so he pressed a kiss behind Draco’s ear.  Draco smiled.  “I’m fond of you too, Weasley.”

 

Draco was gone when he awoke.

Ron got up and showered and put on clothing that he wasn’t ashamed to let his mother see.  Nearly everything else had paint or something else on it.  He just hadn’t gotten around to asking Hanny for a set of laundry charms in a bit.  He put his school cloak on and his wand in the inside pocket.  It felt odd in his hand, but comforting, like coming home.

Tup came down in the morning with four of the fresh apples.  He stayed for lunch and gave Ron a very manly handshake before he went.  “Promise to write, okay?  Let me know what’s going on up there.  I’ve always been curious.”  Ron nodded and Tup headed back down towards town.  

Hanny came to fetch Ron at exactly one.  He followed her, with his bag, to the front of the Manor.  Just like Mum had promised, Professor Snape was standing and making small talk with Mr. Malfoy.  Draco was half a step behind him.  “Ah,” Mr. Malfoy said with a flourish.  “Here’s our Mr. Weasley now.”  There was this familiar evil smirk on Draco’s face, like they were back at school again.  “His work was very good this summer.  He’s been paid, so I suppose we have no further business for now, Severus.”

“I suppose not.”  Ron looked over at Draco, who was staring at a point somewhere over his father’s shoulder.  He never looked at Ron.  “Come, Mr. Weasley.”  Professor Snape started down the walk and, with nothing more he could do, Ron turned and followed him.  On the other side of the gates, Snape drew his wand.  “Might as well practice your Apparition, Mr. Weasley.  I don’t want to be blamed if you splinch yourself all over London tomorrow.”  Ron drew his wand and looked back up at the house.  “Diagon Alley, on the count of three.  One, two.” Ron began the spell, and he couldn’t stop when he saw three figures Apparate onto the lawn, on the other side of the wards.  “Three.”  One of them turned to Ron and he saw red eyes flash at him just before he disappeared.

 

“It was Voldemort!  He wasn’t alone, and he was on the other side of the wards, which means they aren’t there anymore!”  Ron was shouting and it had been twenty minutes since his mother had stopped warning him to stop calling Voldemort by his name.  Ten minutes since Harry, who was sitting across from him, had stopped calling Draco an out-and-out Death Eater.  Harry and Hermione just sat there, now, watching him and looking more than a little surprised.  Ron’s hand was red from having slammed it against the table in the Blacks’ kitchen one too many times.  He’d refused to be taken out into Diagon Alley to buy his books like he was supposed to.  He’d refused to be quieted about the need to take immediate action.

“Ron,” Dumbledore said from where he sat at the head of the table.  He paused between words and Ron realized just how exhausted all of this shouting was making him.  “Are you certain about this?  That Voldemort plans to trade bodies?”  Ron nodded.  “You’re certain that Draco was telling you the truth?”  And that was the central trouble, wasn’t it?  That there was no reason to believe that Draco hadn’t misinformed him on purpose.  There was no reason for anyone else in that room to believe anything that Draco said.

“I’m absolutely sure.”

Like always, despite all of the yelling from the Weasleys and Lupin and Tonks, Dumbledore made the decision simply by standing up.  “Then we’ll believe you.  Severus, correct me if I’m wrong, but magical transfer spells work best at New Moon, right?”

Professor Snape looked over at Ron for a moment before he answered.  “Yes, and New Moon is tomorrow night.”

“Terrible scheduling, that,” Dumbledore said as he retrieved a cinnamon disk from the candy jar on the table and popped it into his mouth.  “Tomorrow’s the start of term.”  He thought for a moment while sucking loudly on the candy.  Ron could feel that everyone in the room wanted to yell at him, call him crazy or fooled, and he knew that things weren’t going to get easier anytime soon.  He sank down into his chair and wished he were back in his cottage at the Manor.  His cottage was probably filled with Death-Eaters now anyway.  “It will be easiest to catch Voldemort at the midpoint, when he’s not anchored into either body.  We’ll go up to Hogwarts as if everything is normal.  No use tipping our hand early.  If Hermione’s theories on the warding are correct,” he smiled kindly at Hermione and she blushed, “then we should be able to Apparate in during the process.  Severus and I will bring Ron, Harry, and Hermione.  Arthur and Nymphadora, if you could meet us at Malfoy Manor just at moonrise, I’d be grateful.”  Tonks nodded sharply at him.  “Fantastic.  Now that that’s settled, Harry and Hermione, I’m going to suggest that you go pick up your school supplies.”  They both looked at Ron.  Ron found that he didn’t care.  “Molly,” Dumbledore asked gently, “could you gather Ron’s things?  I fear the dear boy needs a nap rather badly.”

“Of course,” she said, getting Ron out of his chair and towards the door.  “We’ll just get you settled in, love, how’s that?”  She quieted to a whisper when they got to the stairs.  “You did a good job out there, Ronald.  We’re all very proud of you.”

Later, he couldn’t remember if he’d thanked her.

 

When he woke up from his nap, and what might have been a delightfully hazy dream about Draco swimming, Harry and Hermione were sitting on Harry’s bed across from his, whispering at each other.  Ron rolled over and they immediately went quiet.  Ron thought about staying down under his blanket and pretending to go back to sleep.  He just wasn’t ready to talk to them.  Especially since he could hear their festering questions about Draco.  However, it was vastly preferable to do it in his bedroom at Grimmauld Place than to push it off until they were on the train and there were ears everywhere.  He slid one hand up to tug at his pendant and opened his eyes.  “Hi.  How was Diagon Alley?”

Hermione’s eyes were wide with something that Ron didn’t want to think was fear.  “It was fun.  We ran into Dean Thomas.  He’s grown practically another foot.”  The laugh that followed was slightly forced.  “How was your nap?”

“Excellent, actually.”  Ron’s voice was still rough with sleep and he resisted the temptation to pass out again.  “I didn’t get a whole lot of opportunities to nap this summer, and all of that yelling downstairs was tiring.”  It was as big an opening as Ron could give them.  

“About downstairs...” Hermione started gently.

Harry ran right over her.  “Ron, will you tell us what’s going on?”

Ron sat up and sighed and tried to form the words that they wanted to hear.  “I went to the Manor, I got the information on Voldemort’s plan.”

“You trusted Draco.”  Harry sounded betrayed just by the act.  He looked sad.

“I did trust Draco.  I do.”  Ron didn’t think that lying about it was going to help.  “He had no reason to lie to me.”

“He could have figured you out!” Harry exploded, standing suddenly.  “Your letters weren’t warded at all!  He could be luring all of us into a trap!”  

“My letters weren’t intercepted!” he said, pointing threateningly at Harry.  “Draco was right, and we’re going there tomorrow to stop Voldemort and get Draco!”  Harry took a step back and Hermione gasped quietly.  Ron needed, just once, for the two of them to trust him and not push him on something.  He grabbed a sweater from the top of his trunk and his copy of Advanced Potions and stomped out of the room.

  
Dinner came and went and Ron was still on the ancient sofa in the library, reading through the end of the year in Advanced Potions.  Hermione came in at nine and sat on the sofa beside him with her own book.  She was quiet and Ron found it peaceful.  Despite the arguing, he had missed her.  

Hermione turned and caught him watching her and she smiled.  “We trust you, Ron.  We do.  It’s just a little scary to think of facing him tomorrow.”

He wasn’t sure what to say.  “Thanks.”

Ron was silent for a few minutes, looking down at the pattern of the upholstery between the two of them, feeling like something more needed to be said.  He honestly didn’t have a clue what to say to anyone anymore.  Hermione reached over and took his hand.  “We’ll get Draco out too.  I don’t know why we’re supposed to, but you say we’re going to, and we will.”  Absolutely silenced by that, Ron kissed her cheek fast, as if she wouldn’t notice.  Hermione blushed again and Ron turned back to his book.

The trip up to Hogwarts felt longer than usual.  Ron had spent the morning cross at his mother for forcing him up to the Ministry to take his Apparition exam.  Harry and Hermione, who had passed theirs with flying colors earlier in the week, got to sleep in for the work ahead.  Ron told his mother, loudly several times while waiting for her to get her coat, that he was thinking about _more important things_ and that he was quite likely to splinch himself all over the metropolitan area.  He let himself be Apparated along with her and she caught his arm on the other end as if to steady him before whispering urgently in his ear, “If you can’t Apparate in, how do you expect to get him back?”

The whole of the Order had been talking about this as an open door through which to finish off the Dark Lord once and for all.  Ron hadn’t thought that anyone else understood that killing Voldemort was, for him, only a nice bonus.  He passed the test on his first try.

 

On the train, Ron sat in the Prefects’ car and stared out of the window and hoped that Hermione was paying attention to what everyone else was saying.  He noticed that Pansy was sliding around any mention of Draco at all.  He wanted to go into the Slytherin compartments and scream Draco’s name, just to see their reaction.  At some point after they rejoined Harry, he fell asleep.

 

They sat in the Great Hall through the sorting and Dumbledore’s speech and pushed their food around on their plates until Dumbledore looked pointedly at Harry and nodded, and then they got up and left.  Hermione stopped to say a few last words to Ginny, the new Gryffindor prefect.  It fell to her to get the first-years in line and settled in.  It was possibly the easiest task of the night.  

Tonks’ task had been to Apparate onto the manor grounds, Apparate back to her apartment, and then to Grimmauld Place, so they could see if Death Eaters would follow her trail and torch the place.  The nod from Dumbledore meant that she’d gotten home safely and no one was the wiser.  Now for the rest of them to follow in her footsteps.  

No one said a word as Dumbledore and Snape walked them down to the edge of the wards, but Harry and Hermione held hands.  Dumbledore took both Harry and Hermione and vanished.  Given the danger they were walking into and the possibility that the wards were up again, Dumbledore had suggested that the new Apparators not risk splinching themselves.  After a moment, however, Ron turned to look at Professor Snape, who was staring at him.  “You’re certain you can do this?” he asked.  He didn’t sound like he had a lot of faith in Ron.

“I can,” Ron said shortly, looking away from him.  

“Then you might as well Apparate yourself.  One more practice can’t hurt.”  Ron was going to make a comment about how angry Dumbledore would be if Ron killed himself on Snape’s watch, and then realized that, since he was the one who kept insisting that the wards would be down, he should perhaps keep his mouth shut.  He closed his eyes, took a moment to clear his head, and Disapparated.  

Snape was just a moment behind him, and he once the dizziness passed, he realized that he had done it, and they were successfully inside the gates.  They went ahead to catch up with the others.   “Hanny,” Ron whispered urgently, and the elf appeared with a pop beside him.

“Mr. Ron!” she said, and flung herself at his shins.  “It is good to see sir again.  We had worried about sir.”

“Thanks, Hanny.  Can you tell me where Mr. Malfoy is?”

Hanny shook her head and then nodded and whispered, “In the field past the orchard.  Master is not to be disturbed.”  

“Hanny,” he said, crouching down to her level.  “Is Master Draco with them?”  

She shook her head.  “Master said that he would call for Master Draco when he was needed.  Master Draco is in his bedroom.”

“Hanny, could you lead my friends to the field?”

Hanny shook a bit and clutched his pant leg.  “Master is not to be disturbed and the elves are not to leave the stores.”

“They won’t disturb him,” Ron lied.  “They just want to look.  And you can go back straight after, all right?”  

Hanny brightened visibly after that.  If it wouldn’t go against what Master had said, then she seemed perfectly happy to oblige.  “This way, sirs.”  Hanny began marching off towards the rear of the house.

 “Mr. Weasley,” Dumbledore said.  “Good luck.”  Then Dumbledore picked up Hanny and they all turned and started running for the field.

Ron took a deep breath before heading up the path to the front door.  It opened easily and, true to Hanny’s word, there wasn’t a single elf about.  He realized, as he began to take the stairs two at a time, that he hadn’t asked if Mrs. Malfoy was down in the field.  There was very little he could do at this point except to hope for the best.  He opened Draco’s door slowly (he didn’t want to risk the noise of knocking) and the torches came to life.  There was no sign of him in the sitting room, but the bedroom door was closed.  Ron stepped up to the second door, tugged on the hem of his sweater, and then pushed in.  Draco was standing in front of the bureau, the open door blocking him from sight.  “I’m almost ready.”

“Good, then,” Ron said, and the door swung shut abruptly as Draco turned to look at him.  It was the first time in a long time that Draco had allowed himself to look completely surprised.  

“What the hell are you doing, Weasley?  You’re going to get yourself killed!”  

Ron shut the bedroom door.  “Fine welcome for someone who’s come all the way from Scotland to save you.”

Draco was wearing a black cloak with serpents stitched around both arms.  It looked expensive and brand new.  He went to Ron and clutched his arms.  “Ron, You-Know-Who is in my back garden!  You’re not safe here.  We have to get you out!”  Ron wasn’t moving.  “Why are you staring at me?”

“Never thought I’d see you again.  It’s just nice, that’s all.”

“Ron!”

“Calm down,” he said gently.  He kissed Draco just for a moment, and Draco left his eyes closed a second more.  “Harry and Hermione and Professor Dumbledore and Snape have gone down to try and stop him.  I’m going to get you out of here.”

Draco was much more careful about showing his surprise this time.  “I take it then that you passed your Apparition exam.”

“I did, but portkeys are much safer for this sort of thing.  Less chance I’ll kill us both.”  They stood a moment in silence.  Ron thought that Draco understood that this was the last time he’d be in his boyhood home.  He spoke a little more softly.  “Are you ready to go?”

“I can’t go back to school.  I don’t have any of the texts.”

“You can borrow mine,” he said, letting go of Draco.  

Draco dashed to the corner to grab his broom and then returned.  He took a deep breath.  “I’m ready.”

Ron looped one arm around Draco’s waist and held the golden pendant with his other hand.  “Take me home.”


End file.
